“We had considered Madoff Securities not as a get-rich-quick scheme but as a buffer against risk,” the retired textile distributor from upstate New York said. “We entrusted Mr. Madoff with all we had, and now everything that I worked for over a 50-year career is gone.”

The Brooklyn native said he’d just cashed his life-insurance policy to pay his mortgage, but was still nervous that he might lose his home.

In the first meeting on Capitol Hill to address the scandal, members of the House Financial Services Committee vowed to enact sweeping changes in a financial regulatory system that was already seriously flawed.

Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) said the Madoff scandal was like “the cherry on a bad sundae.”

The Madoff case “fell through the cracks of our regulatory system,” he said. “It now appears that regulators should have detected the Madoff wrongdoing earlier because of the red flags raised by others.”

The Security and Exchange Commission is under fire for not uncovering the fraud – despite numerous complaints against Madoff’s company.

“Many of us have lost confidence in the SEC,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).

“Where can we go to get the proper oversight? I don’t have trust in them [the SEC] for the future,” she said.

SEC Inspector General David Kotz pledged a thorough inquiry into how the agency handled the case and set a Jan. 16 deadline for staffers to turn over Madoff records.

He said “social and professional relationships” might have influenced agency investigators.

The hearing came on the same day The Wall Street Journal reported that Madoff’s company was examined at least eight times in the last 16 years by the SEC and other regulators.

No wrongdoing was ever found in those queries.

Last month, Madoff’s sons told authorities that their father, a then-respected financier believed to have the Midas touch, had confessed to a colossal Ponzi scheme.

Thousands of investors all over the globe, as well as international banks, charities and major hedge funds, lost their savings investing with Madoff.

One financier, a prominent Frenchman who had entrusted his own fortune and that of his clients, committed suicide after he figured out that he’d lost everything.